In a video, recorded on the edge of the ice zone in the middle of the Pacific, a trimaran sails, circumnavigating the world via the three capes. "The day dawns from 57° south, which is about as far south as I'm going to go (...) We're at the latitude of Cape Horn, and it's 14 °C, it's completely nuts (...) I've been here before, and I have memories of cold and extreme cold," said Charles Caudrelier, the solo skipper leading the pack in the Arkea Ultim Challenge boat race around the world, on January 30. Even in the middle of the southern hemisphere's summer, the mild weather caught on camera intrigued these professional racers, who are used to the icy winds common to the oceans around Antarctica, at the southernmost tip of the world.

Like the four other sailors still in the race, Caudrelier was able to measure one of the fundamental effects of climate change: Cold spells and record-low temperature spells have been disappearing in all areas of the planet.

Météo-France's national weather monitoring stations recorded 55 monthly cold records, compared with 2,451 warm records over the whole of 2023. In January 2024, despite a "wintry episode" at the beginning of the month, there were only nine cold records, compared with 170 heat records. Moreover, Météo-France made a point of contextualizing the local absolute cold record measured in the lowlands of Arras, northern France, this winter (-14.7 °C, on January 19): That station has only been in operation since 1987, two years after the last very harsh winter recorded in January 1985.

With the arrival of milder weather, January 2024 was once again above the seasonal norms – as has been the case for every month since February 2022, except for April 2023. This trend has continued into February with an exceptionally mild period. These observations have confirmed scientists' analyses: The Sixth Assessment Report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) states that "it is virtually certain that (...) cold extremes (including cold waves) have become less frequent and less severe."

"The fact that the climate is warming means that extremes of heat tend to be very high, whereas the opposite is true for extremes of cold," confirmed François Jobard, a meteorologist at Météo-France, who has taken to posting old photos of his snow-covered native Jura department, eastern France, on social media. "Record-breaking situations are still theoretically possible, of course, but their frequency will continue to diminish, and their probability will become increasingly infinitesimal."

You have 58.23% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only.